OUR HOME BIRDS. 
221 
“ ‘ Their flight is quick, vigorous, and always ac- 
companied by a peculiar whistling of the wings, by 
which they can easily be distinguished from the wild 
pigeon. They fly with great swiftness, alight on trees, 
fences, or on the ground indiscriminately ; are exceed- 
ingly fond of buckwheat, hempseed, and Indian corn; 
feed on the berries of the holly, the dogwood, and 
poke, huckleberries, partridge-berries, and the small 
acorns of the live oak and shrub oak. They devour 
large quantities of gravel, and sometimes pay a visit 
to the kitchen-garden for peas, for which they have a 
particular regard.’ 
“ The turtle-dove builds its nest in a rough, care- 
less sort of fashion in an evergreen, among the thick 
foliage of the vine, in an orchard, on the horizontal 
branches of an apple tree, and sometimes on the 
ground. A handful of small twigs are laid together 
anyhow, and on these are scattered some dry, fibrous 
roots of plants; the whole structure is nearly flat, 
and contains two beautiful eggs of snowy whiteness. 
“ I will show you now,” continued the governess, “ a 
picture representing a pair of turtle-doves, instead of 
one, as is generally the case, perched both on the same 
twig in the most confidential and loving attitude. In- 
deed, the male or female is so much attached to its 
mate that the one has been known to pine away and 
die of grief and hunger when the other has been killed. 
